12,600 Monks

We are in Chiang Mai, Thailand right now. Every six months we have to leave India, so we use it as a time of vacation also. We come visit friends, go shopping, and have massages. Sounds like an easy life, huh? Well, when massages cost $4. you can’t pass it up.

Today we were woken up by the sound of someone talking in a loud speaker. It was 5 am. Way too early for people to be talking outside, into a microphone. We ignored it until we got out of bed. Then I looked out the window to see what the noise was all about. It was the gathering of the 12,600 monks. A stream of bald men in orange sheets wrapped around them were walking down the street. And many more people in white who were worshiping or serving or something.

We are in a hotel and we get a breakfast buffet with our room. This morning it was crowded with people in white and a small table of monks. There were no glasses, no cups, no plates and no silverware. Micah was a bit perturbed by that. I just got a small salad plate and put my morning fried rice on it. Eventually there was a cup for tea. There never was a bowl for cereal for Micah.

12,600 is a lot of monks in one place. I’m not sure where they all came from. Could that really be all the monks in Chiang Mai??? I asked a man if he knew what it was all about. He is a Christian Thai man who use to be a monk, so I figured he would know. He explained that because of the recent flooding many people believe Thailand is under a curse. So this gathering of monks is an opportunity for people to give their offerings and offer prayers (or whatever Buddhists do) in order to remove the curse.

I wonder what we do in America when we have large calamities like this flood. Do we think we are being punished by God? Do we seek forgiveness? Or do we curse God for sending it? I sure wouldn’t blame God for punishing America for turning from Him. I would love to see America seeking forgiveness and taking just one day to come together to seek God. Or even just 12,600 of us.